The consensus is that it’s still going to get worse before it gets better.
What fascinates me is that the American people, not being sophisticated in the use of the counterfactual and sophisticated statistical analysis are increasingly blaming Obama for the troubles of the economy. This may not be fair. But it is the way it’s playing out. If the unemployment numbers continue to climb through the spring we are going to see increased panic and intervention by Congress.
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Perhaps after we go through a second great depression, we'll finally figure out that it's the intervention causing the problem and not the lack of intervention.
Then again, probably not.
“we are going to see increased panic and intervention by Congress.”
Which is Obama's and Congress doing…so they are just blaming him ahead of time.
The more they intervene, the worse it gets.
And yes, Obama is to blame. Or did I miss when he cut taxes or regulation to make it easier for private sector to hire?
I'm not entirely sure placing the blame on Obama (and his friends in Congress) isn't altogether unwarranted. He's playing this thing like he's copied the FDR playbook and we know how that worked out.
I'm not sure it isn't his policies (not to mention his posturing) that isn't the cause for this. I suspect that contrary to the claims from the White House that their actions have brought us from the brink of disaster, they've actually moved us closer to the edge of cliff and they're doing their best to move us further along the road so we'll be closer to an ever higher cliff.
They're proposing higher taxes and regulations in various ways. They're printing money like it's going out of style (pardon the pun). They're borrowing money like Paris Hilton on bender with her American Express Platinum card. They have created enormous uncertainty for everyone. Is it any wonder the economy is stagnating and unemployment is continuing to rise?
In short everything this administration has done is almost exactly the opposite of what they should have done.
Roberts and Boudreaux,
Why not develop a time-line which shows our current recession and that of 1920 (or point me to one that already exists)? It could be merged so that the origin would share January of 1920 and December of 2007. Then it would track the relevant GDP and jobs numbers. Wilson was abed and Harding went gambling (so I hear) but their economy improved much quicker. It would help to compare it to the nightmare slog we're now looking at. We could point unemployed people to the running graph showing that by month:20 of the laissez-faire recession unemployment was X… and then to month:20 of this Bernanke/Geithner-fest and how much worse the stats are.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” –Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn
You are great Russ—but what are you talking about?
Before we start blaming the statistically unsophisticated American public for blaming Obama, we should look to the even more statistically unsophisticated administration who purport to lead them. They marched out “multipliers” on a fraudulent stimulus bill, forecast a maximum 8% unemployment rate, created a non-sequitur metric (“jobs created or saved”), and promise that massive deficit spending and government intervention will make all our lives better.
The political problem is our leaders are liars or morons—not the public's lack of “counterfactual and sophisticated statistical analysis”. Shake the cobwebs out—its not that complicated!
The Jobs numbers were WAY better than expected. I haven't seen the breakdown yet – specifically, how many of those new jobs were fake public sector employment.
I don't think the interventions will now stop. Politically, they think they can't lose with interventions. If unemployment continues to increase, we need more intervention from our saviours in congress. If unemployment decreases, they take credit and stimulus becomes a permanent feature and the first response to any dip. With each intervention, the market becomes more distorted and rigid and more intervention is required. I think we're past the point of no return.
“I'm not entirely sure placing the blame on Obama (and his friends in Congress) isn't altogether unwarranted. He's playing this thing like he's copied the FDR playbook and we know how that worked out.”
We know how that played out??? Yeah we won a World War, saw a huge growth in the middle class AND had the largest industrial expansion the world has ever seen. How could that have happened if FDR's policies were so devastating? We grew our economy to be the strongest the world has ever seen and in so doing defeated communism on economic terms ultimately.
I am pretty sure you DO'NT have a clue ,”…how that worked out.”
You are simply proving Russ's point. Being counterfactual and lacking analytical skills and with no pretension of objectivity. You totally ignore what got us the Great Depression this time and last and lay blame on those hired to clean it up for not fixing it in a few months.
It's amazing how gallingly loose with the facts you people can be and still take yourselves seriously.
Something like this?:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/09/emplo...
(Second graph)
“the American people, not being sophisticated in the use of the counterfactual and sophisticated statistical analysis are increasingly blaming Obama for the troubles of the economy. This may not be fair.”
Certainly the threat of cap and trade and the threat of health care mandates are inhibiting hiring.
John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities .
“Health care mandates will likely raise the cost of labor and thereby discourage hiring,” while “cap-and-trade will likely increase the cost of energy and transportation for employers and thereby reduce any funds left to hire workers.”
Not sure whether economist John Silva is “sophisticated in the use of the counterfactual and sophisticated statistical analysis”, but he seems to understand the economics of hiring decisions.
I don't know whether U.S. Representative John Kline understands statistics, but he seems to be aware that legislative uncertainy is preventing small business hiring:
“Currently, many small businesses have stopped hiring as they try to predict the economic and regulatory atmosphere they will face. … There is a palpable level of frustration among America’s job creators as they grapple with more uncertainty and the potential pain of higher taxes. The continued loss of jobs is a stark reminder of how uncertainty can weigh down an economy that is already struggling.”
I love irony.
I'm not sure the blame is based on any sophisticated analysis. An awful lot of people voted for him based on his sweeping platform of Hope, Change and fixing-everything-the-last-guy-screwed-up and they expected him to deliver on those promises. Big promises demand big results.
Something like that, except with lines for 1920, too. According to the hyper- (perhaps spastic-) Austrians I follow, 1920 was the last time we had a huge drop in aggregate spending and the feds did little about it.
But this graph to which you linked only goes back to the '40s:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SqEKrmmR3...
Has anyone asked about the veracity of today’s number, in light of the bogus jobs created/saved numbers thrown about recently?
The joke on the street was this number came from the climate science dept. of East Anglia Univ.
Yeah, like that except showing the Great Depression numbers. Because the claim is made that Hoover was an interventionist like Obama. So the trends should look the same. And if they don't the non-interventionist will again have their backs to the wall trying to re-write history and give
counterfactuals to explain why things aren't as they appear… again.
Thanks for commenting.
Hahahah…that's funny… I GET IT. The climate's really not warming because Bill Jones sent some emails and so job losses must not be decreasing because Bill Jones is probably the same guy who track jobs numbers and temperatures and if both these things were actually true you'd be wrong twice…again. But it's funny har har har har. It's all Bill Jones fault. Reality can't be so.. it must be a joke. It had BETTER be a joke…hahaha… its funny…I get it. But seriously we need to get some emails from these bureaucrats over at the BLS.
Who’s Bill Jones?
Oh, you must mean Phil Jones, the disgraced pseudo-scientist.
Since you can’t accurately recall any of the people involved, it’s highly unlikely you accurately process the science. We already know you’re completely uninformed about economics.
What a naive statement. Of course people won't figure that out. In what America do you live?
Using communist-style policies to defeat communism? Hmm…
Hahahah…that's funny… I GET IT. The climate's really not warming because Bill Jones sent some emails and so job losses must not be decreasing because Bill Jones is probably the same guy who track jobs numbers and temperatures and if both these things were actually true you'd be wrong twice…again. But it's funny har har har har. It's all Bill Jones fault. Reality can't be so.. it must be a joke. It had BETTER be a joke…hahaha… its funny…I get it. But seriously we need to get some emails from these bureaucrats over at the BLS.
Who’s Bill Jones?
Oh, you must mean Phil Jones, the disgraced pseudo-scientist.
Since you can’t accurately recall any of the people involved, it’s highly unlikely you accurately process the science. We already know you’re completely uninformed about economics.
What a naive statement. Of course people won't figure that out. In what America do you live?
Using communist-style policies to defeat communism? Hmm…
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